Indigenous Indian Knowledge Systems and Social Entrepreneurship: Bridging Tradition with Innovation

Abstract

This paper is a conceptual integration of Indigenous Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) with social entrepreneurship, where it is positioned ancient Indian Philosophical wisdom as a workable and ethical foundation for today’s contemporary social enterprise practice. Today’s social entrepreneurship literature mainly comes from Western economic and managerial thinking that is gives the most priority to market efficiency, scalability and measurable impact. Such approaches often do not have strong ethical roots or cultural understanding. In this paper this gap is addressed. The study is based on qualitative, conceptual and interpretive methodology to explore traditional Indian philosophical writings, native ethical ideas, and current scholarly studies. Based on key the Indian Knowledge Systems concepts such as Dharma (Moral Duty), Karma (Accountability of action), Seva (Selfless Service), Loksangraph (Welfare of all), Aparigraha (Non-possessiveness) and trusteeship, the paper redefines social entrepreneurship as a practice rooted in tradition while open to innovation. It creates new conceptual models that show how ethical awareness, community centric leadership and ecological balance can be carefully built into the design, management, and innovation of social enterprises. The study helps advance social entrepreneurship theory by presenting a non western way of understanding knowledge that naturally brings together the ethics, sustainability and collective well being. It also strengthens indigenous knowledge studies by reshaping Indian Knowledge Systems as applied, contemporary and scalable framework instead of viewing them only as philosophical or cultural objects. This paper concludes that IKS based social entrepreneurship provides a holistic and sustainable alternative to the market centric models and is important for management education, policy formulation and inclusive development in India as well as globally.